Kindred In Death

“She was right to be.” Settling down, she started a standard run on Vance Pauley. “And she was right when she said Vance was a bad man. Lots of trouble here. The juvie’s unsealed, so somebody beat me to that along the way. He had trouble starting at nine. Truancy, theft, destruction of private property, cyber bullying, hacking, assault, battery.”

“At bloody nine?”

“I’m moving through. Twelve on the first assault. It was the ID fraud that had him in during the Inga period. Then he drops off, just like that. He’s got a mile-long sheet from childhood to the age of twenty-one, then nothing.”

“Got smarter.”

“Or Inga was smarter, and ran the games, taught him. And I’ve got nothing on her, nothing on that name that corresponds to the age, the description Pauley gave me, the location she lived when she was with him. She’s listed on Darrin’s records as his mother, DOD, May sixteen, 2041. He’d have been four. But there is no death record corresponding.”

“She’ll be in MacMasters’s files. Not under that name, necessarily, but she’s the motive. The reason for the plan he had even seven years ago.”

“Yeah. And I’ll find her.”

She pulled out her ’link when it signaled. “Dallas.”

“Are you seriously in Alabama?” Baxter demanded.

“I’m on my way to transpo, and will be heading back.”

“Could you pick up some barbecue? There’s nothing like Southern barbecue.”

“Baxter, it’s your ass getting barbecued if you’re tagging me for nothing.”

“Can I have barbecue if I’ve got something? Jesus, Dallas, you’re going to scare my appetite away with that face. Okay, we got a hit. Girl working the bar at a club that caters to barely legal college types. She made the sketch. She says she had some classes with this guy. He really did go to Columbia. Better yet, she’s a grad student, working her way through her master’s, and says she saw him-you’re going to love it-at a party on New Year’s freaking Eve.”

“At Powders’s.”

“At Powders’s. Tells us she was there solo, and hey, why not, so she put a little hit on him. He wasn’t into it. Believe me, a man would be crazy not to be. Right, Trueheart?”

“She’s very pretty.”

“Hot. Steaming, finger-burning hot.” He sighed the sigh of a patient tutor. “My work is never done with this boy.”

“Write it up.”

“That’s where the boy’s work is never done. So we hied ourselves-”

“What yourselves?”

“Hied ourselves over to Powders’s, and got confirmation. He, his roommate, and his unfortunately underage twist all recognized him. Just somebody they’d see around now and then. But the girl noticed him party night. She said she always notices frosty guys-and gave our own Trueheart a little flutter.”

“Sir, she did not-”

“You need to be more observant, my young apprentice. So we’ve got wits put him in Powders’s on the night the ID was lifted. It’s good.”

“It’s good.”

“Dallas, it’s too damn late to go knocking on doors at MacMasters’s.”

“It’s only… shit.” An hour gained, an hour lost. She just hated it. “You’ll hit it after the briefing tomorrow.”

“We’ve got a couple more maybes here and there. Shilly’s the solid.”

“Shilly.”

“I know, she even has a steaming, finger-burning name. About that barbecue.”

She cut him off.

“The PA’s going to be pleased with that when we take him down,” she said to Roarke. “It’s nice case-building. If you manage to clean up that hard drive, get me that picture of him going in the door-”

“And we will.”

“We’ll put him away. But we have to find him first. Got his face,” she mumbled. “Got a name. Not the one he’s using now, no, not the one he used with Deena. That was David. But a name. Got his co

She noted they were about to enter the transpo station. “I can start the search for Inga-whatever name she was using-on the way home.”

“I could find her faster, I’d wager. If you’d like to pilot.”

“Ha-ha.”

“You’d enjoy flying more if you’d learn the controls.”

“I’d rather pretend I’m on the ground.”

Roarke sent her a quick smile. “And how many vehicles have you wrecked, had blown up, or destroyed in the last, oh, two years?”

“Think about that, then imagine it happening when I’m at the wheel at thirty thousand feet.”

“Good point. I’ll do the flying.”

“Do that, ace.”

He parked. “They had something, the Pauleys. A solid base, a strong co

“I wouldn’t argue. He feels responsible, and feels a kind of grief over Darrin. Even though it’s very unlikely he’s the father.”

“Blood still, either way. Blood’s a strong tie. Kinship, as you said. And a good man like that, he’d feel it regardless.”

“A bad man can feel it, too,” she said and got out of the car to fly home.

15

SHE’D BEEN IRENE SCHULTZ-AT LEAST IN June of 2039 when a young Jonah MacMasters had collared her for fraud, possession of illegal substances, and soliciting sex without a license.

Her male companion, one Victor Patterson, had been questioned and released though MacMasters’s case notes indicated his complicity. Lack of evidence against him, and the woman’s confession made it impossible to hold and charge him.

A male child, Damien Patterson, had been removed by child services into foster care during the investigation, and subsequently returned to his father. Schultz had taken a deal, and had done eighteen months.

Case closed.

“It has to be her,” Eve said as she and Roarke walked back into the house. “Everything fits. Two months after her release, she poofs, and so do Patterson and the kid. Vanish, no further data on record.”

“Picked up new identities.”

“That’s the pattern.” She headed up the stairs. “Change ID, move locations, start a new game. But here’s a new angle. From the case notes, it’s clear MacMasters believed Patterson-or Pauley-was part of the fraud. He let her take the rap, and she let him. She went down for it. More, Vi

It didn’t fit, it didn’t play, Eve thought.

“And the solicitation? Those are stupid risks for these kind of grifters. Stupid, and it doesn’t come off she’d been stupid. The woman played Vi

“Sex and drugs are quick money if you need it,” Roarke commented. “And big money if you know how to play them. That’s telling.”

Eve paused on the stairs, considered. Quick and big. “It might fit Pauley. Greed, impatience. It might.”

“And it’s telling,” Roarke added, “that when she made this deal for the eighteen, she didn’t roll on Pauley. It would be SOP, wouldn’t it, to offer her a still lighter sentence if she implicated her partner?”

“Yeah, it would. And there would have been some sympathy for her. Young mother, clean record-or so it appeared. She went with a public defender.” She moved into her office, straight to her computer. “I’ve got the name, and the name of the APA from MacMasters’s case notes. But he wouldn’t have the negotiations in here. I need his memory on this.”

“She didn’t die in prison.”

“No, she didn’t die in prison. Why is MacMasters to blame for her death, whenever and wherever and however it happened? It’s illogical, and in his twisted way, he’s logical.”

She paced to the board, around it. “Something not in the case files, the notes, something not on record? But he’s a kid, hell almost a baby really, right? So how does he know what happened, how does he know MacMasters has to pay?”

She pi

“Because Pauley tells him,” she concluded, studying the photograph, the harsh and weary eyes of the woman. “Pauley tells him how it went down, from his point of view anyway. Or how he wants it to play. It can’t be, yeah, I let your mother take the full rap while I walked. No, it can’t be that.”